Diasporic Communities and Social Media (original) (raw)

Facebook as a Platform for an Imagined Diasporic Community

MEDIANZ: Media Studies Journal of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2017

Overcoming geographically determined territorial boundaries, Facebook as a communication platform offers an extension of Benedict Anderson’s concept of the ‘imagined community’ (2006, xi), particularly in the form of groups formed around diasporic communities. These Facebook groups encourage civic engagement and are bound together by the use of a distinctive ‘cyber-language’ and set of expressions that contribute to a sense of shared identity. In this paper, I look at the ‘cyber-dialogues’ of three south Asian diasporic cultures in New Zealand, namely Indian, Malaysian and Filipino, to identify the most popular civic issues raised on this platform by each of them.

The Identity Construction of Migrants on Facebook

2019

Social network sites, such as Facebook, allow access to a series of resources or discursive forms that constitute a multimodal and dialogical system that transcends barriers of time and space, favouring transnational communication, something particularly important to migrants. In addition, the comments and dialogues that take place in such socialisation spaces allow us to develop a greater knowledge of the identity and positioning of the user with respect to others. With this work we analyse, from a qualitative point of view, 150 posts each containing at least five comments, published between 2017 and 2019, in each of five Facebook groups of Latin American migrants living in Italy: Uruguayans, Argentinians, Colombians, Peruvians and Venezuelans. We determine their role in the migratory process and how the digital environment affects the relationships between migrants. In addition, we investigate how the identities of migrants are negotiated and (re)defined in discursive practice. Results shows that social network sites are "transnational social spaces", in which a community is based on bonds of solidarity that derive from a shared conception of collective identity, and they forge deterritorialised "community of feeling".

Multifaceted Potentials Of Social Media: Digital Immigrants in Focus

International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 2021

Communication has been faster, easier, and better than ever, thanks to the technological advancements in the twenty-first century. Online Media has gotten a go-to stage for various purposes, including information seeking, communication, entertainment, and socializing. This phenomenological qualitative research sought to know the experiences, struggles, coping, and insights of 12 digital immigrants of Tagum City in using social media; the participants were purposefully selected using snowball sampling. While this is a common thing for digital natives, digital immigrants who belong to the generation where these things are not yet developed find it hard to understand how these things work, and the younger generation doesn't understand why their parents or grandparents are slow in learning these technologies. The results of this study show the reasons why they use social media, how they learn to cope up with this innovation in communication, as well as their insights. It also showed that even if it is hard in the beginning, they also have the urge to learn because they know the advantages of social media.

Diaspora/migration (social media and politics)

Sage Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics , 2014

Social media provide a particularly fascinating entry-point to explore diasporas because diaspora and digital communication platforms are both characterized by paradoxical processes of space and time compression. The links between the two processes have only received increased attention during the last few years, although the current total number of transnational migrants would amount to a country that would rank among the first ten in size globally. Diasporas online raise questions about the core dynamics of cultural globalization spurred by the developing World Wide Web and transnational migration flows: do they ultimately globally connect or divide humans; enable opinion formation, voice, mobilization and protest or new forms of surveillance and censorship; homogenize and balkanize the Internet or promote diversity; promote democratization or reinstall hierarchies? Evidence for all these processes is emerging and movements in both directions have been observed (Bernal, 2010). This article first provides a definition of the notion of diaspora and outlines historical developments in transnational media use of migrants predating the contemporary use of social media. Subsequently, examples and political implications of social media use of diasporic and migrant populations are charted.

Social Media and the Renegotiation of Filipino Diasporic Identities

Diasporic identities may involve shifting forms of socio-economic class, status, culture, ethnicity and the like depending on one’s relationship with others (Lan, 2003; Pe- Pua, 2003; Seki, 2012). Social networking sites (SNSs) may offer transnationals to do more than just keep in touch with loved ones. Unlike other technologies (landline/mobile phones, email, instant messaging, voice-over IP service, etc.), the SNS design may also reveal ambivalent facets of their identities previously segregated through one-on-one or one-to-few modes of communication. In SNS contexts, unexpected paradoxes, such as being labelled an ethnic migrant in the host country while simultaneously being stereotyped as a prosperous immigrant in the home country, may become more evident. Previous studies conclude that SNS facilitate the demonstration of diasporic identities (Bouvier, 2012; Christensen, 2012; Komito, 2011; Oiarzabal, 2012). These platforms may allow diasporics to constantly and continuously renegotiate who they are to certain people. This research investigates how Filipino diasporics may simultaneously perform their cultural identities on Facebook to loved ones in the home country, new friends in the host country and members of their diasporic community around the world. Profile photos, status updates, photo uploads and video sharing may allow them to challenge Filipino stereotypes. By combining Filipino indigenous methods and virtual ethnography, I acknowledge my unique position as a Filipino migrant. Such means occupying an in- between space—as both an insider and an outsider (saling pusa). While my research methods may seem aligned with virtual ethnography, pakikipagkapwa (development of trust through relationship-building) is my mother method. Interviews and focus group i discussions are more like casual conversations than formal data gathering techniques. I treat participants as equals in our shared experience of renegotiating who we are as Filipino diasporics. This is rooted in the Filipino core value of “kapwa” which views identity as a fusion of self and others. Thus, I investigate how my participants and I renegotiate our cultural identities with Filipino and non-Filipino contacts on Facebook. Subtle renegotiations seemed to emerge through online pakikipagkapwa. These result in new forms of Filipino diasporic identities that may seem more visible on Facebook than in our material encounters. Such renegotiations may involve identity formation through deliberate association with and/or distancing from people in the way we enact kapwa as part of who we are as diasporic Filipinos through social networking.

Making Space, Making Place: Digital Togetherness and the Redefinition of Migrant Identities Online

2015

Immigrants have played a fundamental role in shaping the life and form of urban public spaces for generations. Their efforts, as many scholars have observed, mostly aimed at creating places of comfort in new and sometimes hostile receiving countries. In recent years, the combined contribution of the built environment and screen-based experiences have shaped migrants’ sense of community and belonging, thus making the concept of online community central to ideas about space and public life. Drawing upon a 3-year online ethnography, the article discusses to what extent new media constitute spaces of digital togetherness, where diasporic experiences and transnational identities are constructed and negotiated. It presents a transnational model of creative media consumption, which helps give insight as to how diasporas and ethnic minorities contribute to the transformation of public space in the Digital Age.

The role of social media in negotiating identity during the process of acculturation

Information Technology & People, 2019

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the role of social media in negotiating and managing identity for transient migrants relating to the home and host culture during the acculturation process. Design/methodology/approach Focussing on international students in the UK, this paper reports on findings from a qualitative study involving interviews with 27 transient migrants about their social media use and the negotiation of their identity online. Findings This paper highlights the multifaceted role that social media plays in the identity negotiations of transient migrants and it offers three theoretical contributions. First, the authors show that social media serves as a medium, consequence and determinant of identity. Second, provide four strategies for identity management are provided: boundary management, access management, online content management and offline content management. Third, contextualised support is provided for a reciprocal relatio...

"Bringing Spain back”: The construction of virtual diasporic communities of Spaniards in Mexico

Digithum: A relational perspective on culture and society, 2018

Following the global economic crash of 2008, thousands of Spaniards were forced to leave their country in search of better conditions in other parts of the world. Some set off for European countries like Germany or England, while others crossed the Atlantic into the " New World ". Several migrants, mainly young, arrived in Mexico looking for jobs or better economic conditions. Given these circumstances, social media platforms have attained strategic significance, and not only for Spaniards already living in Mexico who want to stay in contact with their relatives, friends and culture in Spain. These platforms are also an invaluable tool for those thinking of traveling to the Latin American country and who need information related to economic, migratory and security issues. This work focuses on understanding how social media platforms serve both to solve problems of daily life and to encourage cohesion and enable the construction of communities among Spaniards abroad.